Coral Oomera Edwards

Made by Oomera (Coral) Edwards on Super 8mm film as a training exercise at the (then) Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies in Canberra. The film surveys the New South Wales policy of taking Aboriginal children from their families and putting them in institutions run by the Aborigines Welfare Board. From 1883 to 1969, this policy deprived generations of children of their Aboriginal identity. Oomera was one of these children, and she discusses her own struggle to regain her Aboriginality.

An extraordinary personal journey into the experience of being black in a powerful white society. "Link-up Diary" is a film about the consequences of New South Wales long term practice of taking Aboriginal children away from their parents and raising them in "white" environments. In following the reunification, after many years, of several families in Sydney, during one week of 1986, the filmmaker adopts a diary format which does not attempt to disguise awareness of the camera's presence. This awareness becomes part of the film's subject.